


capsulemast3r wants to voice chat with you

by Alecto



Series: Fictober 2019 [8]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Accidental Confession, Chatting & Messaging, Fictober 2019, M/M, Post-Canon, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21573568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alecto/pseuds/Alecto
Summary: “Wait, Kaiba likes me?” Jounouchi’s brain stuttered to a stop as the controller slipped his numb fingers.His game character froze in the middle of a wide, open plaza. A sudden sniper bullet winged him, dropping his health to below half. Headshot or not, the next one would finish him."How? Why?!" he demanded into his microphone.
Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto
Series: Fictober 2019 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529003
Comments: 24
Kudos: 231





	capsulemast3r wants to voice chat with you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkmus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmus/gifts).



> Fictober Day 10 prompt: “Listen, I can’t explain it, you’ll have to trust me.”

“Wait, Kaiba likes me?” Jounouchi’s brain stuttered to a stop as the controller slipped his numb fingers. 

His game character froze in the middle of a wide, open plaza. A sudden sniper bullet winged him, dropping his health to below half. Headshot or not, the next one would finish him.

"How? Why?!" he demanded into his microphone.

“Listen,” said Mokuba, voice tinny through the headset but with all the gravity of a shareholder meeting. “I can’t explain it, so you’ll have to trust me.”

If anyone knew Kaiba Seto well enough to figure out he liked anyone, that person would be Kaiba Mokuba. Still, the idea was so foreign. So absurd. Jounouchi wanted to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Or dead. Or bumbled his way into a weird alternate universe. 

Mokuba was more like his older brother than most people admitted. Jounouchi knew them both long enough to pretend otherwise. While he was on good terms with the younger Kaiba, an age-old suspicion, borne of a poisoned set meal from the kids’ menu, now reared its head. 

“Why are you telling me this?” Jounouchi asked.

Mokuba’s reply floored him. No, it freaking grabbed Jounouchi and suplexed him through the floor. “Because I think you like Nii-sama too.”

“I... I...” His mouth flapped open and shut. He fumbled for a denial. A snarky comment. Something. He came up empty-handed though.

Mokuba’s character dove in front of him, throwing up a shield to block the next sniper bullet. It was all in vain though. Another enemy player flanked Jounouchi and ended him with a heavy, gauntleted fist. Thirty seconds. He had thirty seconds to kick-start his brain before his character respawned. Jounouchi doubted he’d manage. No amount of time was enough for him to come to terms with his conflicted feelings on the matter—the exhilaration or the stomach-wrenching terror.

-x-x-x-

Jounouchi still hadn’t fully recovered from his shock by their next gaming session. As he and Mokuba queued for a match, they made small talk about their respective lives over the last week. Jounouchi had little going on other than work. Mokuba spent most of their time waiting in queue talking about an upcoming school festival and the booth his class was preparing.

God, how time flew. He couldn’t believe Mokuba was already in high school. Objectively, he knew they were only five years apart, but it still sometimes blew Jounouchi’s mind. Especially when he saw Mokuba in person. The kid had started a growth spurt that might end with his older brother looking up at him.

Mokuba dropped the bomb as soon as they charged out of spawn. “So have you thought about what I said last week?”

Jounouchi only faltered a second, before recovering in time to fire a rocket straight into an oncoming enemy’s face. He gibbed the other player. “What about it?” 

Mokuba huffed; keys clacked loudly and furiously in the background. “About Nii-sama. Duh.”

“That’s just your guess. You don’t know that for sure,” he argued. 

Mokuba needed to drop the subject. Otherwise, their team would lose. 

“Well, you could find out,” continued Mokuba, leading the charge on the control point. “Watch out, they’re coming in on the right.”

Jounouchi swore, sidestepping a shotgun blast and returning fire with a wrist rocket. The in-game percussive blast forced two enemy team members off the control point. “Find out? How? ‘Hey, Kaiba, your pipsqueak brother thinks you have the hots for me. Wanna suck face?’”

Mokuba literally cackled. “I will pay you to say that.”

“Not a chance in hell.” He stressed the final syllable for emphasis. “Your brother would have his black-suited goons club me over the head and committed.”

Or have Jounouchi’s legs broken. Fifty-fifty odds either way and a hundred percent chance being thoroughly humiliated. No thanks. Mokuba couldn’t pay him enough money in the world to play those odds.

"C'mon, Nii-sama wouldn’t do that."

“You’re right. He’d laugh in my face first and then ban me for life from KC-sponsored tournaments,” grumbled Jounouchi.

The enemy team had fortified the main entry point leading into the control point, setting up a turret and even some mini-turrets. While some of their other teammates worked on breaking through the “front gates,” Jounouchi and Mokuba, as two of the more mobile characters on the team, infiltrated through a less favored route. They both fell blessedly silent as they snuck around. 

A miniature turret zinged Jounouchi’s health, and he blasted it to smithereens. There went their element of surprise.

Jounouchi cleared the cramped doorway and launched his character into the air. “Ult’s up.”

In the chatbox, Mokuba fired off a message to the rest of the team.

_capsulemast3r: ULT UP! PUSH THE POINT_

Mokuba popped up at the enemies’ rear and fired a set of shurikens into their backs. Jounouchi simultaneously let loose a barrage of rockets, picking off one, two, then three enemy combatants. Their other teammates mopped up the remaining opponents, eliminating the entire enemy team. That should buy them enough time to capture the point.

An unexpected killfeed notification popped up in the top-left corner though.

**けけけ ⇨ capsulemast3r**

“Fuck, Tracer crit’ed me!” Mokuba cried.

He smirked. Hah! Served the little shit right for trying to distract him.

“Careful. What if Kaiba hears you?” Jounouchi teased. 

“Wouldn’t you like that?” Mokuba shot back. “If you really wanna talk to Nii-sama, I can call him for you.“

“Give it a rest, kid. I know you’re at the age where you think you know everything. But you don’t. So drop it,”

“I’m not wrong!” snapped Mokuba, growing audibly frustrated. “I know I’m right. Nii-sama likes—”

“Mokuba?” A third voice rang loud and clear over the other end of the line.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Or Kaiba Seto in this case.

“Shit,” Mokuba and Jounouchi said in unison. 

A second later, Jounouchi winced as a loud rustling noise filled his headphone, followed by a heavy clunk. It sounded as if Mokuba had taken off his headset and dumped it unceremoniously on his desk. Even as their team advanced toward the next control point, Jounouchi hung back, straining his ears to listen to whatever was happening on Mokuba’s end.

“Are you ready to go?” Kaiba asked.

When Mokuba spoke, he sounded like he’d moved away from the microphone. “You’re home early. What’s up, Nii-sama? I’m in the middle of a game.”

“We have a dinner meeting with Pegasus, remember?”

Mokuba groaned. “Shit, was that today? Do I have to?”

Kaiba’s response was so tense that Jounouchi could easily imagine his ramrod spine. “I refuse to entertain that man on my own. Your attendance is more for his protection.”

“Still, it doesn’t have to be me,” whined Mokuba. “You could take Isono. Or invite Yuugi. Hell, take Jounouchi with you!”

Jounouchi dropped his controller and buried his face in his hands. If only he could reach through the internet and strangle the brat. Meanwhile, team chat messages streamed across the bottom-left side of the screen. Every one demanded to know why Jounouchi and Mokuba were AFK. 

“Is that who you’re talking to?” Kaiba’s voice drew closer, sending shivers down his spine. “Jounouchi?”

“Whaaaaaat?” Mokuba laughed nervously, sailing straight past nonchalance and into suspicious. “No, I'm just talking to my teammates.”

“Your team is losing,” Kaiba pointed out, disapproval coloring every syllable he spoke.

Lifting his burning cheeks, Jounouchi checked the screen where his character continued to idle. Sure enough, the killfeed was overflowing with their teammates’ deaths. Even if he jumped in and charged the point, the other team would easily pick him off without backup. They’d failed to push their advantage, and their enemies had fortified the point.

“Uh, sorry, guys, gotta go! See you next week!” Mokuba said, fumbling over each word. 

The voice chat disconnected as the words “capsulemast3r has left the game” flashed across the screen. To no one’s surprise, least of all Jounouchi’s, their team lost the match.

-x-x-x-

Jounouchi logged in two days later and started flipping through the various game modes. It was a Thursday night, and his plans with Yuugi for the evening had fallen through. He might as well squeeze in a few games and grind for that limited-time character skin. To his surprise, a voice chat invite from Mokuba popped up on his screen. Jounouchi accepted it.

“Hey, Mokuba,” he greeted after pulling on his headset.

Mokuba did not return his greeting.

He frowned. Maybe it was a bad connection. He tried again. “Mokuba? You there?”

A text chat popped up instead. 

_capsulemast3r: mic’s broken. but I can still hear you._

“Huh, that really sucks man. You up for a game though?” he asked.

The reply came lightning fast. Jeez, Mokuba must have the typing speed of a beast. Or his older brother was rubbing off on him.

_capsulemast3r: sounds good_

A group invite soon followed, which Jounouchi also accepted without hesitation.

“Gotta admit. This feels kinda weird,” he said while matchmaking was in progress.

_capsulemast3r: it’s fine. you talk plenty._

He laughed. “True, but I wanna hear about that business dinner with Pegasus. C’mon, what was that like? Is he still a giant kook?”

_capsulemast3r: he is_

“Dude, harsh.”

_capsulemast3r: there’s not much to tell, it was a business meeting._

“I gotta admit. I kinda feel sorry that Kaiba still has to deal with Pegasus these days. Like you could not pay me enough to do that.”

The reply came noticeably slower. By the time it did, Jounouchi had already locked in his character selection. 

_capsulemast3r: it can’t be helped. I2 is a strategic partner._

When they loaded into spawn, Jounouchi spun his camera around to check on the rest of the team. Huh, strange. Mokuba had picked sniper. He so rarely played one. But halfway through the map, Jounouchi was more than convinced Mokuba should play one more often. All game, Mokuba hang back and out of sight, landing one precision headshot after the next.

“Dude, you should play sniper more!” Jounouchi exclaimed after they pushed the payload past the second to last checkpoint. “You are a beast! This is almost too easy.”

_capsulemast3r: that’s because it is_

“Well, don’t let it go to your head, kid. We can’t afford for you to get a big head like your brother.”

_capsulemast3r: you talk a lot about him_

Jounouchi flushed and muttered a curse under his breath. “Shut up,” he grumbled. “You’re always bringing him up first.”

_capsulemast3r: not today_

“You’re a pain in my ass, ya know that? It’s your fault anyway. Ever since you told me—” He bit his bottom lip and cut himself off. 

_capsulemast3r: yes?_

Jounouchi sucked in a deep breath. “Fine, I’ve been thinking about what you said. I’m only saying this to get you off my back, ‘kay? You know I like guys, and so what if I like Kaiba? I mean, nuthin’ll happen. But I still think you’re wrong about Kaiba. I know he’s your brother and you probably know him better than anyone else on earth. But you know that sounds insane, right? He’s Kaiba freakin’ Seto. Even if he no longer hates my guts, it doesn’t mean he likes me. Now can we drop this stupid idea—“

His phone buzzed in his back pocket. Shifting carefully, he dug his phone out of his jeans. _Mokuba Calling_ read the screen. Jounouchi pulled his headset off and answered, “Hey, Mokuba, you didn’t have to call.”

_capsulemast3r: Jounouchi_

“Jounouchi, someone’s hijacked my account!” Mokuba said frantically. “I can’t log in!”

“Whatcha talking about? I’m in-game with you right now. If this is a joke, it’s not funny.“ Irritation clawed at him. Wasn’t it enough that he told Mokuba the truth? Or were all Kaibas bent on humiliating him?

“What? No, that’s not me!” 

What the hell? Had he been playing with a random stranger this entire time? But he hadn’t noticed anything strange. Whoever had stolen Mokuba’s account had spoken, well, typed so familiarly with Jounouchi. His gaze snapped back to his TV. His heart nearly stopped when he read the latest message waiting in the text chat.

_capsulemast3r: Let’s talk in person. -Kaiba_


End file.
